


A Champion's Reward

by ilovelocust



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Champion Shiro, Focus Shiro, M/M, Self-Hatred, Viewpoint Shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 00:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13892709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovelocust/pseuds/ilovelocust
Summary: Survival is not enough. For the best performances rewards are necessary.





	1. Chapter 1

Shiro hears about the attack from the guards first and the other prisoners second. The Galra Empire has expanded once again, and Earth has fallen. There will be new blood dying the arena floors. Promoters tossing the confused and helpless to the teeth of alien terrors in an eager attempt to find more of the Champion’s caliber.

The worst part is they will be successful, and Shiro will face the results in the arena. Stripped of whatever small dissociation from his actions has come from alien features. He will stare into another human’s eyes, and there will be no hiding from the monster he has become.

-

The first they considered worth his time is a brute of a man. His biceps put Shiro’s to shame and crude prison tattoos dot his skin. It makes things easier. This is the face of someone who’s made mistakes. This is the body of someone who can defend himself. It’s not someone frail, an old man with glasses, or a kid. As Shiro’s hand boils the man’s insides, he lies to himself that his victim ever had a chance.

There is a reward waiting for him back in his cell. The Galra like to give their best fighters encouragements beyond mere survival, but they’ve always struggled with him. Their delicacies are just as alien to his taste buds as their gruel, and isolating him in a private cell is as much a torture as a reward. But killing one of his own has merited another attempt at the concept.

Sitting in the middle of Shiro’s cell is a single bowl of mint ice cream. Shiro hates mint. Could never stand the stuff. The only way he tolerated it in his presence was as an excuse to give an extra mint chocolate to Keith that he wouldn’t turn down. It’s also the first piece of home he’s seen since entering this hell.

Shiro licks the bowl clean.

-

The second is squared jawed, with hair buzzed close to his scalp. His movements are of someone trained in hand to hand. He’s better than Shiro with his fists, and if he’d only been slightly more familiar with the blade they gave him he’d have won.

Shiro throws up in his cell. The shiny metal dog tags around the man’s neck glittering in his mind. He forces down every bite of the curry they bring him.

The third has no excuses. A group of the weakest prisoners, in a glorified execution. He can remember the exact shade of pink their exposed brain, but not the color of their hair.

Someone, a quartermaster? A promoter? He doesn’t know, they bring things to the best of the best. He accosts Shiro before he enters his cell. Waving a data slate in front of his face.

“Which one do you want?” He says. The fog is heavy in his mind, but there is claw tipped hand between him and the dark cell. Shiro slowly turns his head to the data slate, blinks, and gets some image of what they want from him. There is a woman, brunette, pictured there. Arrows below to show more selection.

A sex slave listing…of course. Strip him of his humanity, conquer his planet, then offer him a warm body of his own species for being such a compliant killer. There’s no energy for telling them where they can stick their slate, there’s no room left in the carved out hole where his emotions should be for anger. He just needs to eat and sleep, so he can hate himself tomorrow. “I don’t like girls,” Shiro says, too tired for a better excuse and pushes past the guards to his cell.

It’s only one restless night sleep and three meal later, after he’s decided it’s too late to die a hero so he might as well live a monster, that he realizes how his words were probably taken. He’s going to come back covered in gore to find some scared boy the promoter thinks is to his taste. He crushes down the part of himself that’s pleased at the idea of having someone to talk to.

-

There is nothing and no one waiting in his cell after the next fight, or the one after that, or any of the four after. There have been no more humans sent to fight him either, and if it weren’t for the barest hints from the rumor mill, he’d worry they’d glassed Earth and there was no more home left to reward him with. He still worries.

He’s dreaming of empty halls and shredded Garrison grays, when the loud creaking of his cell door wakes him. Shiro is on his feet immediately, not awake enough to process what the threat is, but ready to fight it anyway. Matches only happen during the day cycle, the dimming in the cells means the ship is in night cycle now. The guards are not here to bring him to the arena, and any change in routine spells danger.

The promoter from before steps in, and he knows its him, he’s gotten good at telling the Galra apart even those without obvious distinguishing features. There is a smile with far too many fangs, then that same claw tipped hand motions at the guards and something heavy is dropped at the door of his cell. He doesn’t wait for Shiro to understand. Stepping over the thing and letting the door slam shut behind him.

The thing, no the black and purple signifies a prisoner, is sprawled face down where he was dropped. Unmoving, maybe unconscious, but the black unruly hair looks human. They really did it. They went out and found him a boy. They stripped someone away from their family and home as a reward for Shiro.

No, don’t think like that. The Galra take many prisoners. They wouldn’t have bothered to get someone special just for him. This is just one of their many prisoners they’ve taken, and Shiro’s probably spared him the fate of a work labor camp or the arena. They might even be grateful enough to him to not assume the worse of his intentions.

He kneels, carefully rolling the body over, and knows he was wrong. This is his fault. Eyes still shut in what he hopes is a drugged sleep, is a face he’s never forgotten. He last saw it trying to hide how much he’d miss Shiro behind a proud smile on the day of the Kerberos launch.

Keith.


	2. Chapter 2

Keith doesn’t wake. Not when Shiro cups his cheek with shaky fingers. Not when he crushes the smaller body to his own and holds on as tight as he can, wetting the shoulder of Keith’s outfit with his tears. Keith sleeps on. Breathing too steady to be natural, as Shiro lays him out on his now too small cot. He pulls the blanket up to Keith’s chin, and it has never looked thinner.

Shiro will sleep on the floor. Tonight and every night after. He owes Keith that much. He owes him so much more for putting him on the Galra radar. He’d burn off his remaining good arm if they’d just let Keith go. Maybe he could ask them? No, no, god knows what they would do with Keith if he left this cell. Nothing can be trusted in this place. If he can’t see that Keith is unharmed with his own two eyes, then he could be deep in the mad witch’s lair for all Shiro knows. He’s done enough harm to this man for one life time. Don’t make it worse.

Shiro sits to the side of the cot, back against the wall, where he can watch the door for guards, but his eyes keep darting back to Keith’s sleeping face. Dark eyelashes closed in false peacefulness. He’s just as beautiful as Shiro remembers. Someone that could take his breath away in motion or rest…Which is why he’s here. Shiro pined after someone who just needed a friend, and his lust led Keith here. Keith is going to hate him when he wakes, and Shiro will deserve every ounce of it.

How is he even going to begin to explain this to him? What words could justify this? He’d never touch Keith, not like that. No matter what intention the promoter had had in bringing him here, but even if Keith accepted that, he’d still have to answer why. He’d still have to tell Keith how he betrayed his trust. Fantasized about making him moan and scream so often even the Galra noticed. Shiro sighs. Keith will never forgive him.

Maybe he should just play dumb. Pretend he doesn’t know why the Galra would dump Keith in his cell. The guards refused to talk to him before he started doing well in the arena, they might not tell Keith what he is here for. He could remain blind to Shiro’s baser desires.

Yes, just lie, and maybe, maybe, he can stop himself from hurting the one good thing in this cell more than he already has.

-

Shiro doesn’t sleep again that night. The night cycle lighting switches to the day, the echoes of a hundred alien tounges greet one more morning in hell, and Shiro does not pause his watch. If this reward is only temporary, something he will be expected to earn again and again, now will be the time they come to collect. Shiro will be ready for them, he will lose, but they will pay in blood for their daring.

Clanking footsteps sound in the hall. Someone is coming. The sound stops in front of his cell, the door rattles. Shiro tenses raises his prosthetic arm. He can’t activate it outside of the arena but it will still hurt whoever he punches. The food slot pops open and a tray is shoved in. There are two rations. 

Keith will stay.

Shiro doesn’t relax, he never relaxes here, but his shoulders ease. He stands to collect the two bowls of gruel. Keith shifts in sleep. Whatever was holding him under must have finally worked its way through his system. Best to stay as quiet as possible. These are his last moments of blissful ignorance, he deserves not to be hurried into meeting the reality Shiro has forced him into.

Shiro returns silently. Sits to eat his rations without bothering to taste. Except for his few rewards, everything here is designed to keep the widest range of prisoners alive and useful. The flavor could be described as offensive tasting on a good day.

Keith’s restlessness grows as Shiro eats. Flopping back and forth seeking a more comfortable position in an attempt to hold on to the last remnants of sleep. He’ll wake soon. Shiro’s gaze no longer wanders from the door. It’s cowardly, but he doesn’t want to see the look on Keith’s face when he first sees where he is. When he first sees what this place has made out of Shiro. His image is projected above the arena before every match. He knows what he looks like. The clean cut eager pilot that Keith knew hasn’t been around for a long time.

The movements continue, interspersed with tiny little grumbles that would be cute under other circumstances. A particularly hard thrash, then silence. Shiro doesn’t dare look. He keeps his face carefully neutral. Pretends he doesn’t know Keith’s awake. Pretends he doesn’t realize that somewhere off to his right his closest friend and long time crush is probably growing horrified at the sight of him and all the little bits that the Galra have carved away.

The lone blanket rustles, the cot creaks, “Shiro?” A soft whisper, delicate as a soap bubble. Shiro turns his head. Keith’s sitting up, eyes wide, shimmering in a way that must be a trick of the light. His hand hovering in a half reach between them, trembling as if at war with itself on whether to continue on and touch or retreat back.

It’s been too long since he’s had reason to smile, but he tries for Keith. The expression sits awkwardly on his lips, and he hopes it doesn’t look like a snarl, “Hey,” Shiro says, and he’s proud of how his voice doesn’t tremble over the simple world.

Keith’s hand makes up its mind and makes contact with his shoulder. Gripping tight as if Keith might fall over without the extra support. Keith’s smiles shakily, “Hey,” Keith’s voice is wet, and a new guilt arises in his chest. Shiro was his only friend, and he left Keith all alone. Keith swallows before continuing, “It’s good to have you back.”


End file.
